CACHE COUNTY MURDER TRIAL MOVED TO OGDEN

Second District Judge David Roth has ordered the first-degree murder trial ofSteven Ray James moved to Ogden, where he said the defendant is more likely to receive a fair trial.

James, 37, is charged with the death of his 3-month-old son, Steven Roy James. He reported the child had been kidnapped from his car while James went into a store on Aug. 26, 1986.The infant's body was found in the Bear River marshes west of Logan seven weeks later, and James has been held in the Cache County Jail in lieu of $75,000 bail since his arrest on Oct. 26, 1986, nearly three weeks after the body was discovered.

In January, the Utah Supreme Court overturned a decision by 1st District Judge VeNoy Christoffersen, who had denied James' motion for a change of venue. The appeals court cited "excessive publicity surrounding an intensive search for the child by hundreds of volunteers" as the chief reason for moving the trial out of Cache Valley.